Ad blocker consideration rises to 90% in APAC

Ad blocker consideration is on the rise, according to a survey by Unruly and Mindshare, as 90 per cent said they’d consider downloading technology to block ads if they were seeing too many, or if the ads became “too creepy”.

The two businesses have responded to the threat, announcing ‘The APAC Future Video Manifesto’, a guide that aims to help brands learn how to improve the state of their advertising in order to prevent the increase in use of ad blockers in the region.

Phil Townend, Unruly APAC managing director, said: “Our survey highlights some of the huge challenges facing the ad industry right now. The industry has largely adopted an interruptive video model, which is a hangover from TV, and consumers are being bombarded with hard sell sales messages which deliver little emotional value. You could argue we’re hurtling towards an ‘adblockalypse’, where there’s a real risk that consumers will abandon advertising if brands don’t listen to the signals and adopt more engaging, non-invasive ad strategies for the long term.

“Consumers are fed up with ad clutter - too many anti-social, interruptive ads. The solution is polite advertising: polite-page loading, respectful ad formats that give a better user experience, and better ads in the first place - content that’s worth watching,” he added.

While the threat of ad blocking is widespread across the region, attitudes to advertising are varied in particular markets. More Australians (65 per cent) are put off by being forced to watch a pre-roll than Southeast Asians (45 per cent), for example.

A reversal takes place when the authenticity of an ad is being questioned, as 86 per cent of Southeast Asians said they’d lose trust if an ad felt fake, much higher than the 77 per cent of Australians questioned. Southeast Asian consumers are also more sensitive to the ‘creepy’ effect of overly targeted ads, with 67 per cent saying that ads that followed them round were creepy, higher than the 63 per cent global average.

Sanchit Sanga, chief digital officer at Mindshare APAC, said: “The eruption of online video viewing in APAC creates the single largest opportunity and threat for marketers. Consumer-centric companies will recreate their content pipes and storytelling techniques at the core to address these fleeting, restless and picky audiences.”